Nippon's Ramen

Haven't been back to Nippon in a while, what better time than to catch up with my friends.

Even on a Sunday, they are busy with lunch.  That's because after church a bunch of Japanese ladies go there after to hang out.  

This is a cold dish of spinach topped with shaved fish.  I love to dip it all together.

Cute saucer they had with their logo on it.  You don't see that much nowadays.

Agadashi Tofu, fried tofu in ponzu sauce, so good...

This is their Tonkotsu ramen, as you can see it's light pork based, it is white and cloudy as described, which are supposed to be a pork broth.  You see the red, that's ginger, and sprouts, there are slices of pork in there, you just can't see it. 

I appreciate that they definitely cooked the noodle and pork in the broth as you can tell the taste goes together.  If not, you can immediately taste the different base and different cooking and was dump together last minute, which was not the case here.  Next time I'm going back for Miso Ramen.

To top off the meal, we ordered some Japanese ice cream, and my favorite, always, is red bean.  Yum!

If you can't find a decent parking on their lot behind the building, meaning no double park.  Park across the street and be careful crossing.  I'm glad I did because I also got out of there quicker than people parked at the lot that can't get in or out, or was blocked by someone double parked.

Because of the size of the space, seating is very limited.  Now that the weather is nice, take advantage of sitting at the patio.  Do make sure you arrive a little before prime time to get a seat, seating fills up fast!

Nippon Restaurant
4464 Montrose Blvd
Houston, TX
713-523-3939
http://nippon-sushi.com/
Closed Monday!

Ramen in Common

Don't know if you heard about Ramen in Common.  It all started with sushi club members talking about ramen noodles and the mastermind behind the Houston Sushi Club, immediately thought of starting a group for us ramen lovers.

The second event for the Ramen in Common group was a perfect.  Being second event is awesome, because all the kinks from the first event has been worked out.  Yay!

It's at Soma's private area upstairs.  I love that being a member with the club master who's friends with all these Japanese restauranteurs means we always get superb treatment and get special treatment.

Here's our chef Mark Medina at Soma talking about how he improved upon reviews from last event.  Also noted that his method is non-traditional, but his interpretation and what tasted good.

Homemade Trash - which has pickled apples, grapes, pork rind, and fried ginger with sauce to dip in.

This is the 1st serving, we got Seafood Ramen.  It comes in a light seafood & coconut milk broth, but honestly I did not taste any seafood.  The broth has very light taste to it.  As you can see, there's scallop, mussels, and of course ramen nodle.

Here's the Black Bean Ramen, which is beef broth based.  This is one of my favorite, I'm not sure if it's the kimchi and the beef broth mixed well together or because of the short ribs, but either way this is my favorite, bar none.  Oh, and that's tamago, egg custard, like the sushi, on top.

To cleanse our palette, we got some yuzu sorbet with salt and mint.  It does taste fresh and you do feel the cleansing... of course ready for the next course.

Here we have Texas Ramen - the broth with pork based with corn and husk.  It comes with smoked pork belly with the chef's own barbeque sauce.  You see half an egg, fish cakes, and mushrooms.  

For dessert, we got yuzu cheesecake with tangerine sorbet mixed with crushed sesame powder, which comes out like a peanut butter powder once you mix in the berry puree.

I said it before, the black bean is my favorite out of the entire set.  The size and portions are totally perfect.  I do appreciate the creativity and focusing on the taste and what works together, rather than what's been done. 

See, that's the benefit of being part of Ramen in Common, it works like Sushi Club, you sign up for events you want.  You learn about texture, quality, how to evaluate: what's it good and what is different.  Overall, money well spent.

Ramen in Common

http://www.ramenincommon.com/

or on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/groups/398072076958707/?fref=ts

Join the discussion!

Pistachio Macarons

Another flavor I did for my friend's wedding was Pistachio.  

If you are lucky, you can get some pistachio meal in the bulk aisle in Central Market.  If not, you can easily grind them up, just have to do a very fine ground.  Alot of people use a coffee grinder to get the job done.

I mixed it with the dry ingredients, to give the shells more flavors.

Mix and mix...

Add the dry stuff with the egg whites.

Piped out nicely...

came out nice and pied... no crack!

The filling has white chocolate and the reminder of the pistachio.  So melt the 3 oz of white chocolate with 1/3 cup of heavy cream.  Add a tsp of melted butter, I added a tablespoon of the pistachio meal, mix it all together.  And chilled it overnight, cover it with saran wrap and make sure the wrap kisses the top of the mixture to avoid skin forming.  I piped it with a star tip and it comes out wavy.

Ruggle's Green GF Pizza

This time back to Ruggles Green for Gluten Free Pizzas.

This is the GF margherita pizza.  It looked a tad sparse.  As though someone formulaically put the tomato and basil leaves on there... 

This is their GF Pepperoni Pizza.  While I'm super happy to see that this is more meat on the pizza than the other pizza.  This time this is super oily, thanks to the pepperoni.  Definitely more meat on it than the other one... 

Overall the pizzas are pretty good, the crust is thin and definitely good.  I do wish that the margherita has more stuff and the pepperoni is less oily but otherwise, they both taste great.  And I think I'm ready to try the other flavors too.

Ruggles Green

2311 W. Alabama

Houston, TX 77098

713-533-0777

http://www.rugglesgreen.com/

Chatter's Cafe

The other day a friend of ours was just saying how they're opening up a business in the Heights, we were thrilled and also thought about places to eat in the area.  Is he kidding, there's tons to choose from.  

We haven't been to Chatter's for a while, so it's just as good as any time to bring a new person to the place.

This is one of my usual, the gyro plate.  They gave you way too much meat, which is good.  And not enough rice, which you just naturally want to mix them together.  Every time I go, I ended up taking leftover home, this can easily become two meals.

They do serve a little of everything on the menu, but the best thing is their Happy Hour, most day they have food specials, but Wednesday they have 1/2 price bottle of wine.  That makes all happy hour happier.  They have great service and they can do takeout too, not a bad idea to sit out at the patio on a good night too.

Chatter's Cafe

140 S. Heights Blvd

Houston, TX 77007

713-864-8080

http://www.chatterscafe.com/index.asp

Paleo Dinner

Word has it that the authors of Rich Foods, Poor Foods were stopping by on their way to a cruise in Galveston.  So they stopped in Houston to host a Paleo Dinner.

Here's their menu... it was kinda funny because their Ceasar salad came with croton, which is not paleo friendly...  but the food was prepared by Bruce Molzan, formerly of Ruggles fame. 

This was our 1st course, aka salad course.  It's the Farmers Market Greens, it came with a slice of watermelon and a a slice of the parmesan crisp.  The salad has jicama, dried mango, greens and honey mustard dressing.  It was pretty good and a great mix together.

Spring Snapper on a bed of summer squash, it has grapes, orange slices, and carrots and drizzled with salsa.  Lovely combo, and they give you 2 big patties of snapper, it's tons of food.  Wish they offer that more often.

For dessert, we had paleo brownie ala mode.  The vanilla ice cream match with the flourless chocolate cake perfectly.  They should have that on their menu permanently.

Overall, the dinner totally catered to the low carb, high fat crowd, the gluten free crowd, and the paleo crowd.  That said, food is good no matter which crowd you fall under.  I wish some of the items offered here would be offered more frequently.  Hope that's a message to the chef to keep that around.

Corner Table

2736 Virginia St.

Houston, 77098

713-568-9196

http://cornertablehouston.com

Jenni's Noodle

I have some colleagues came in from California, and since we worked till very late, we settled for a quick bite at Jenni's Noodles House.  Fast, good, and did I mention fast?

We had the Disco  Pork Dumplings to share, pretty dumplings, too bad we were hungry and devoured you.  It was good the sauce is good too.  Does anybody know why it's called Disco and why there's only 5?  How do you split the last one???

I tried the Ginger Ramen noodle.  Obviously, it's more like a homemade noodle dish than a true ramen. I think for a true ramen experience, you really should ask for the Miso Ramen, because that's the only 'ramen' dish that is miso broth based.  The rest of the 'ramen' are all soup based, which reminds me alot like the pho soup based.

As you can see, it has pieces of chicken, snow peas, sprouts, scallions, you can add chili oil if you'd like, I can't do too much spice, so I skipped that.   I think the egg noodles are more for wonton noodles you can find at Chinese restaurants not like the real ramen.

I'm not a traditionalist on ramen or anything.  There is a group that is dedicated to that cause... you can go to Ramen In Common and sign up.  It works like the Sushi Club does.  As a matter of fact, it's run by the same guy, Carl Rosa.  Can't wait to go to one of their events and learn about the real ramen difference. 

Jenni's Noodle House

3111 S. Shepherd 

Houston, Tx 77098

713-Noodles

http://www.noodlesrule.com/